I (F21) have been with my boyfriend (M22) for a bit less than two years now.
This is my first relationship but his second. He was with his high school sweetheart for roughly a year before them breaking up because she was emotionally cheating on him with her ex. According to him it was a very toxic, abusive, one-sided relationship where he loved her deeply and wanted to spend his life with her but she didn’t feel the same and only took advantage of him.
So one day he is showing me some old pictures in his gallery and he wants to show me a picture in a hidden folder, and amongst those hidden folders I see a folder titled “demon”. So I ask what that folder is and just instinctively click on it simultaneously and I am met with hundreds of pictures of his ex. He clicks it away and explains that after he switched phones, because his old one broke, he had to revive his pictures and everything got disorganized. And since those pictures were scattered all over his gallery and he didn’t want to look at those (because just looking at her makes him relive all his trauma) he just put them all in that folder, which he was meaning to delete but hasn’t gotten to yet. He offers that I can look through them if I want and my curiosity got the best of me so I stupidly did. There were no explicit pictures of her, just couple pictures, many, many pictures of her (in some of them she was wearing my favourite sweater of his that I like to steal from time to time… won’t be doing that anymore lol), and some saved snaps with explicit messages.
This has been a good few months ago but I still can’t stop thinking about that from time to time. It’s probably just me being immature and inexperienced but that picture thing just left a lasting impression and general uncomfortableness with me. Especially since we are going to go on vacation for the first time together in a few weeks, and he only revealed somewhat hesitantly after me asking for clarification on a very vague statement he made, that that he has been there with her before as well.
How do I get over this? I hate that this is still on my mind sometimes after a few months. I understand that you sometimes keep pictures as a memory and since it was just a phase in your life. I believe and trust him when he says that he is not at all interested in her anymore. But something about this just doesn’t sit right with me. I’m not at all blaming him, I am aware that this is a me issue with retrospective jealousy. It just would be nice to get some advice on how I can get over this :,)
TL;DR: Saw a hidden folder on my boyfriend’s phone with tons of pics of his toxic ex. He says he meant to delete them and just hasn’t gotten around to it. I believe him that he’s over her, but it still bothers me months later. We’re about to go on a trip he once took with her, and my retrospective jealousy is creeping in. How do I move past this?
Comments
No need to be jealous. Assure him that it’s ok for him to look at those photos and think those thoughts about her, and as he feels more comfortable, tell him you’d welcome her to join you two during intimacy. No man should be limited to one woman.
If they were explicit photos he was keeping maybe you would have something you would need to deal with but i don’t feel there is an expectation you have to delete ordinary pictures of an ex.
I never have, its part of my life, I’m not deleting it. If my partner couldn’t handle that i would consider that very controlling excessively jealous behavior. You are showing a lack of trust in him that i don’t think he has earned from what you have written.
If he hasn’t contacted her, no problem.
Im not sure if i would purge photos of my ex or old female friends from my phone.
Not a hill i would die on if i like my current relationship. Not something i think to do when a relationship is over
In a healthy relationship, you should be able to discuss how he feels about keeping these pictures. Let him know it concerns you, but that you want to handle this maturely and respect his feelings if they truly aren’t a threat to your relationship.It’s important to remember that ending a relationship involves a grieving process that doesn’t always happen immediately. Sometimes healing occurs gradually over an extended period, and this doesn’t necessarily mean he hasn’t moved on from her. He may also be processing the loss of future plans and dreams he had built around that relationship. Ideally, most of this emotional work should be completed before entering a new relationship to prevent unintentional harm to the new partner.That said, people sometimes keep mementos from past relationships for reasons beyond lingering attachment. For example, I’ve held onto old photos and keepsakes as a way to measure my emotional growth over time. I once kept a bottle of shampoo that belonged to someone I was completely over because occasionally smelling that familiar scent helped me recognize how much I had healed and grown since that relationship ended.The key is open communication about what these items mean to him and ensuring you both feel comfortable with the boundaries in your relationship.
Your bf is 22. He lived a life before you and that’s ok. As long as the pictures aren’t explicit I don’t see the problem.